Water,water.......

The Shotover river runs for many miles down from the mountains in the centre of South Island, and drops a long way down to Lake Wakatipu, and Queenstown. Much of it is in gorges, making it quite steep, and it is there that many of the adventure sports take place.
As Anne was unfit, I had to do my sports alone, although the company I was with made sure I was not lonely.
Firstly I went on the Shotover Jet boat, along with a dozen others, speeding at up to 80kph through narrow gorges and over very shallow water in places.



 We did a number of 360 deg turns on the way, showing off, but it was certainly a thrilling ride. I can be seen in the top left of this picture, gritted teeth and all!
Later I was taken by bus for twenty kms on one of the worst roads I have ever seen, a mountain track one vehicle wide, with no barriers, and on gravel. I have to say I had my eyes shut part of the time, there were hairpin bends with overhanging rocks scraping the side of the bus, and one bend where one of the wheels almost went over the edge. And the drop below was around 200ft!
All this was to get to the put-in point for rafting on the river.There were eight boats, each with 7 people and a  guide in, and after a good briefing we set off down the river. The first mile or so was a continuation of the briefing, forward paddle, back paddle, left forward, right back, etc etc, even "Hold on"! or "Get Down"!
eventually we got it right, and had an easy 30 minutes to the first real rapid.
Now rapids are measured in grades one to six, and we had four grade fours in quick succession. I have rafted before, but I think what Andrew and I had in the Himalayas were only about grade three. Its one thing having a grade four, but four one after another?
We followed another boat closely, and as they went through another grade four in front of us they stuck in the outflow. The water goes down, and then up, and if the boat is not moving faster than the water it can get stuck. Two of the rafters were thrown out, and we saw the boat almost turn turtle, with another guy just hanging on. We had been briefed what to do in those circumstances, and all the rafters made it out, but the boat was stuck until our guide ran down river and threw a rope to pull them through.
We ourselves got through OK, a bit hairy on that one, and eventually after another couple more lesser drops we made it to the tunnel, a fast flowing stream through solid rock, but with enough headroom to see our way through.
But as we left the tunnel we had the big one just 30mtrs in front of us - a grade five! It was a five foot drop with a huge lift afterwards, every one of us was cowering in the bottom of the boat for this one, hanging on for our lives, and as we hit the lift the boat roared upwards almost throwing us out. But we had survived it, and it was just a short paddle out from there.
The pics on here are not of my boat, my camera is not waterproof so I had to leave it behind, so you'll have to take my word for it - I woz there!

Later we took the Gondola, a cable car, up to the top of the mountain behind Queenstown. I had a go on the Luge, a sort of bogie like we used to run down the roads on when we were kids, not terribly exciting particularly as I had a couple of slowcoaches in front of me I couldn't pass easily.

All in all though, a busy exciting day, I shall leave you with a couple of views from the top of the mountain.